I don't think I ever knew you were in NY
Dish now OUT of Bankruptcy - Business as Usual
- Thread starter ewindowman
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 538
- Views 20K
Advertisements
I agree that's where this phone company discussion probably should be. I've been visiting howardforums twice a day for over 20 years, discovered lot's of really good deals and info there. However, whereas they used to have hundreds of contributors daily, it's now down to less than a dozen regulars and a couple of negative moderators. The site is on it's last legs. I think most participants have moved to reddit.there's a forum called howard forums. It's all about phone companies
Just saying.
Well that is good news! Around here AT&T mid-band is only in the big suburbs and what I would call 'rural cities', a small city in a rural county that is usually the county seat. There are many rural towers I'm seeing 1.5 - 2 Gbps on with T-Mobile where AT&T is LTE only. And Verizon is humming along at 1 Gbps or a little higher on c-band.
I know I've said this many times, but my ultimate plan one day is to get a commercial grade 5G router that supports dual SIM and have T-Mobile and FirstNet SIMs activated. I want to wait until their are units that can support n14 and n79. I can't see spending well over $1000 on something that will be gimped in a couple of years.
There's a ton to talk about. It's just most people are ignorant when it comes to their hopeless addiction to their phones and spend a lot of time on them but have no idea how the signal gets from point A to B thinking they work on magic, wishes and unicorn farts. They only care when they are at an event with thousands of other people and can't do their tick tocks and Snapgrams and their $1500 shiny toys are useless, I really don't give a damn about phones themselves but I have a tremendous interest in the underlying technology.
Wow ,who would of thought there was this much to talk about when it came to phone companies?
I always have Signal Check Pro and Network Cell Info open, looking to see what I'm connected to and watch the levels fluctuate as I move around as environmental variables change.
On my FirstNet line, Signal Check Pro would only show the indepth info for the LTE anchor bands when on 5G on my Pixel Fold 9 & 10. On the Pixel Fold 11 it shows everything. Not sure why the change, it has nothing to do with SA v NSA. When I saw that, it was like Christmas morning for me.
I'm not perfect, but I'm getting pretty good where I can drive by a tower and know which provider(s) is on it and can pick out each provider by the rack.
DSL is a different animal as it depends which ISP you used as there was also Northpoint, Rythms and Covad as many others who acted as data CLECs depending on the flavor of DSL and if it was symmetrical or asymmetrical. Even with backhauls, there can be more than one backhaul which may or may not using different transport providers so Consolidated could have just been one of the many for redundancy in case one had issues like a fiber cut. We have fiber cabinets from what was GTE Hawaiiantel, Time Warner Telecom Hawaii and GST Hawaii.
And then there is the "Thank you for using AT&T where we reach out and touch someone!"
Yes because it's the same like people who could not use computers if there was not the GUI. Give them Unix and they can't even do the basics.
Even here in California in the older days, those who had Pacific Bell Mobile Services or MCI which used PBMS or T-Mobile which used PBMS towers or Sprint PCS or AT&T GSM in the older days, they could buy the best phones that were not U.S. models and it would be nothing more than a paperweight most of the time due to lack of signal.
People pay too much attention to bars and not the actual signal strengh which is measured in dBm (decibel-milliwatts). And then lots of people do not even realize that the best phones are those that works not when the signal is strong but when there is almost no signal. As even the same model phone would not be exactly the same as they just have to meet the spec, some will perform better because it will exceed the minimum specs required.
then there is the power output which is measured in Watts that also would determine if one will have a usable signal or not when the signal is low.
Yes and people will usually call it HoFo. For Internet, it was dslreports which I believe finally disappeared as there is nothing newer than January 2025 as the site was running on it's own for years.there's a forum called howard forums. It's all about phone companies
Yes, that's true. I haven't visited it for quite some time and it seems like while US Mobile seems to be famous elsewhere, it's not on HoFo as people there seem to question if it's really as good as people claim it is. I forgot if DSLReports which is valuable for internet service providers and also to a certain extent, at least with XFinity mobile included wireless phone company discussions as well.
I use US Mobile and it's fabulous, option to use any of the Big 3 and the customer service is outstanding.
Yeah, it seems like it's the best choice and one does not have to regret picking a carrier and be stuck to one network when they have access to all the networks out there.
One of these days when I have more time, I will have to learn what QCI is and what the number translates to as that seems to be something in US Mobile discussions on both reddit and HoFo and even from the CEO himself.
QCI = Quality of Service Class Indicator.
The lower the number the better.
Each provider makes up their own QCI structure. It's generally first responder, post paid, pre paid, MVNO in that order from highest priority to lowest, but there are a ton of caveats and scenarios. As far as I know, there is nothing definitive put out by the providers themselves on this, only what people have been able to piece together. Basically outside of First Responder plans, the more you pay the higher priority you have. There's a reason that super cheap plan on an MVNO exists, because you are getting the table scraps and a neutered network experience versus those who pay more. You get what you pay for. T-Mobile implements network slicing for Business Plans and T-Priority, which is a whole different topic.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-NzUxAkE1g
The lower the number the better.
Each provider makes up their own QCI structure. It's generally first responder, post paid, pre paid, MVNO in that order from highest priority to lowest, but there are a ton of caveats and scenarios. As far as I know, there is nothing definitive put out by the providers themselves on this, only what people have been able to piece together. Basically outside of First Responder plans, the more you pay the higher priority you have. There's a reason that super cheap plan on an MVNO exists, because you are getting the table scraps and a neutered network experience versus those who pay more. You get what you pay for. T-Mobile implements network slicing for Business Plans and T-Priority, which is a whole different topic.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-NzUxAkE1g
Not always. But you sure aren't going to get MORE than you paid for!
That should be on a bumper sticker.
I have a TMO Business account and (supposedly) get QCI 6 on my data-only lines, which is better than USM. I also get access to Passpoint, which is WIFI in large venues. For instance I was at a charity gala at a big casino resort last night and my TMO line automatically logged into Passpoint. That's something you only get on postpaid AFAIK.
For USM I'm using "Verizon towers," and that's my primary voice line, so QCI doesn't matter as much. For my primary voice line I need coverage and dependability, not fast data.
Being able to utilitize dual esims makes all this possible.
For USM I'm using "Verizon towers," and that's my primary voice line, so QCI doesn't matter as much. For my primary voice line I need coverage and dependability, not fast data.
Being able to utilitize dual esims makes all this possible.
That's certainly what the Big 3 want you to believe. I was on Verizon postpaid for decades on QCI 8, which is the best you can get on a non-Firstnet consumer plan. I'm now on USMobile Starter Unlimited Warp (Verizon) for $22.50 month.........on QCI 8.
Starlink Mobile or SpaceX Mobile maybe?AH! Soon to be StarLink country!
Looks like you get deprioritized after 70 GB of data on that plan, it's now QCI 9 and only 10 GB of hotspot data. If that works for you, that is great.
However as a data hog, I would not be willing to live with those restrictions for a primary or secondary line. I do well over 100 GB per month on both T-Mobile and FirstNet, plus the hotspot usage. Verizon is a a play line for mmWave and sniffing out SA 5G.
What US Mobile is doing is very impressive, if I was a normie and cost was an issue I might consider it. Google announced they have added a second provider back to Fi, they haven't confirmed if it's Verizon or AT&T, but everyone seems to think it's VZ, so US Mobile is getting a semi competitor.
Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 11, Members: 0, Guests: 11)
Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 335) Show all
- ewindowman
- charlesrshell
- klang
- Bobby
- EarDemon
- Almighty1
- msbehavin
- Bruce
- BatStang2000
- randycat
- rvvaquero
- Briant73
- tallfence
- zippyfrog
- Scott Greczkowski
- Ilya
- dhunter113
- navychop
- yelraek
- meStevo
- comfortably_numb
- brice52
- AZ.
- fmj77
- MikeD-C05
- profish
- worstman1
- n0qcu
- dishdude
- Rolling Joe
- Poorsha
- pamajestic
- nelson61
- reubenray
- dishstaller
- Foxbat
- Redneck_Randy
- stargate5
- NYDutch
- Keith Brannen
- rocatman
- Strega
- larryk
- sasmith
- Darrell S
- RTCDude
- Ronnie-
- oscar22
- Elsguy
- johnr475
- REB
- WALLYWOMBAT
- ERSanders
- mljoness
- KAB
- mrbreeze640
- renjy651
- ClarkGable
- mc6809e
- RobMeyer1
- slow_poke_pete
Latest posts
-
-
T
-
-
TAre Healthwear Companies Using Your Health Data to Train AI Models?
- Latest: TWiT Tech Podcast Network
